While we wait upon Thee [on Thee, Lord, we wait]
and while we do need Thee to bless us and ask Thee to
bless us while we wait on Thee, we would rise even higher
and say, Lord, satisfy Thyself. Get to Thyself the reward
of Thy sufferings, the travail of Thy soul. Lord, find
Thine Own Satisfaction. Ours will, we know, follow. We
shall not lose anything if the Lord gets what He wants.
And so, may we find our blessing in Thy Blessing, for Thy
Name’s Sake, Amen.

The Letter to the Hebrews; and we are this morning coming
to the concentration of the whole letter in one section.
In chapter twelve, you will note that this concentration
of the whole letter in this section is governed by the
two words, “NOT—BUT.” Verses 18–25:

For ye are NOT come unto a mount that might be
touched, and that burned with fire, and unto
blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound
of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice
they that heard entreated that no word more should be
spoken unto them; for they could not endure that
which was enjoined, if even a beast touch the
mountain, it shall be stoned; and so fearful was the
appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and
quake:

BUT ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of
the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to
innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly
and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in
heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the
spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the
Mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of
Abel. See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.

Not—But. We shall not dwell upon the
various details gathered under the “not.”
We will simply say that this does represent a tremendous
change over from one whole system of Divine activity and
method in the past which is, or was, of the nature of the
tangible, the sentient, the palpable—what you could
see with your natural eyes and hear with your natural
ears and touch with your hands and register by all your
natural senses of soul and body. That comprehends the
past system, and over it is written “Not”—not
anymore. That kind of thing is left behind. And, mark
you, dear friends, it is because that has been overlooked
or not recognized that Christianity is in the poor state
that it is in today, for Christianity is built very
largely upon this “not.” You will see
that more, perhaps, as we go on the positive side. But
register that, register what you are not come to. Take it
clause by clause in its significance. Take each clause
with its significance and see what we are not come to. We
are not come to a system that can be appropriated and
known by natural senses. That is very comprehensive,
touches a very great deal, that is finished. The
Cross has cut in between that and this “but
we are come.”

Now I want to be very implicit and careful. Did they
really come to Sinai? You see the description? The Holy
Spirit through the writer is making it very, very
definite and positive and emphatic that this was
something very real—so real that even Moses, who had
such access to God, such fellowship with God, with whom
God did speak Face to face as a man to his friend, this
man said: “I exceedingly fear and quake.”
Was that real? Was that imaginary? Was that just
abstract? No, this thing was very real. People cried out,
“Stop, we cannot bear this. We cannot endure this.”
Very real! That is what they came to. If you had been
there, no doubt, you would have said, “There is no
imaginary thing here. This is something terrific.”
“But we are come,” and do you mean to
say that the “but” is less real than
the “not”? Do you mean to say that
this that we are come to is abstract, while that was
concrete? Oh, no, I am sure that this is even more real,
after its own kind, in its own realm; and, dear friends,
that is the point upon which we must focus everything,
the reality of what we are come to.

When you go on and break this all up into its details, if
you are in your own senses, senses of mind and soul, you
are just completely baffled. It seems so idealistic or
imaginary, so ethereal, so unreal. See, to the
natural, the spiritual is unreal. To the natural man, the
man of soul, what is essentially and intrinsically
spiritual is unreal. Their reaction is “Oh, let us
be practical, let us come down to earth, let us get out
of the clouds and get our feet solidly on the terra
firma, let us get down to things that are more real.”
That is the reaction of the natural man to the spiritual.
But to the spiritual man, spiritual things are far more
real than the tangible. And this that we are come to, to
say the very least, is as real as what they came to at
Sinai, even though after a different order.

Zion: the Consummation of
Everything

Now I want you to note the tense of the verb, because
it is very important to get the tense: “we are
come to Mount Zion.” Not we are coming, not we
are going, not we shall then arrive at Zion. No, “we
are, we are come.” I know you will go on
singing, “We Are Marching Upward To Zion.” We
know what you mean, but we are not marching upward to
Zion. The Word says: “But ye are come to Zion,”
present tense. We are supposed to be at Zion now. Have
you got that? There is here, of course, a contrast
between Sinai and Zion, but it is not only contrast here,
but note, in keeping with what I have just said, it is
more than contrast, it is consummation!

This Zion was on the horizon for Israel right at the
beginning. I think it is an impressive and amazing thing
that you find the people through the Red Sea and on the
far side; and then you look at Exodus 15 and find them on
the far side and you have this, right there, before ever
they had marched into the wilderness and on to the land—or
got anywhere other than on the other side of the Red Sea—you
have this: “Thou wilt bring them in, and plant
them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, the place, O
Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, the
Sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.”
Right at the beginning Zion is in view, as the end, the
consummation of their journeyings and their experiences.
During the next forty years? Ah, yes, and many more. Zion
is on the horizon from the beginning. Zion is not the
beginning, Zion is the consummation of everything.

This is the Letter to the Hebrews. In old times, they
were on the journey, stage by stage, phase by phase, step
by step. You remember that chapter which is just full,
smothered, with that word in Numbers, “and they
journeyed and they journeyed and they journeyed.” I
think it is forty times in one chapter, “and they
journeyed.” This is “the old times.” The
Letter to the Hebrews says, “We have arrived, we
have arrived.” How? Because all the bits and pieces,
phases and stages, steps and movements, have come to
their consummation in Jesus Christ. We have arrived, we
are come to the end of all God’s movements in His
Son. He is the consummation of all!

Zion: the Perfected Work of the
Lord Jesus Christ

Now then, still this word “Zion,”
which it says we are come to, remains a bit abstract so
far as our mentality is concerned. We must, therefore,
get down to see what this Zion is that we have come to.
We have said Zion is consummation, comprehension, or
comprehensiveness, but what is it? What makes it up? What
is the constitution of Zion as God’s end?

[1] ZION: A PEOPLE IN THE GOOD OF THE
COMPLETE AND PERFECT WORK OF CHRIST

First of all, we say Zion is an inclusive and
comprehensive term; in other words, we are come to the
all-inclusive and all-comprehending thought and intention
of God when we have come into the Lord Jesus. We may have
to grow in our apprehension and understanding of what we
have come to, but God has nothing whatever to add to what
we have come to. We have got it all! In Christ, we have
all! God has reached His end in His Son, finished His New
Creation in His Son, and entered into His rest. So the
letter here says, “We who have believed do enter
into His rest.” It is a comprehensive term,
Zion —it is coming into all that God has placed in
His Son for us. Christ is the sum total of all God’s
work over which is written: “It is finished.”
That does not mean just come to an end, it means it
is all completed, it is all completed, it is all
perfect!

You know the formula when the priests brought the
sacrifice for the atonement and placed their hands upon
the head of the sacrifice, they uttered a formula which
in the Greek means, “It is perfect.” They had
gone with their trained eye over that sacrifice, turning
up every hair to see if there was one of another color,
any minute point of contradiction and inconsistency,
through and through, opening its mouth, examining its
teeth, every part gone through the trained eye of the
meticulous priest; and when he finished his examination,
and when the sacrifice had been put up for ten days under
that scrutiny to see if there would be any development
whatever of an inconsistent, imperfect element—at
the end, he brought it forth and put his hands on it and
pronounced: “It is perfect.” That is the Letter
to the Hebrews. By one offering, forever He has
perfected, made complete; and when Jesus cried, “It
is finished,” it was the cry of the verdict of
an Offering Perfect, without spot or blemish, to God.
It is perfect. It is complete. His work and His
Person are in right standing with God.

The sum of all God’s work is represented in the
symbolic name, “Zion.” But Zion is
seen to be not only Christ Personal, but a corporate
thing. It is the people of Zion, as well as Zion—the
people of Zion, a corporate thing; and Zion then is a
people who are in the good of the complete and perfect
work of Christ, a people who are the vessel of that work
of the Lord which is complete.

Zion? It is so easy to say things like this, and this is
Bible teaching, perhaps, you might say, good Bible
teaching; but, oh, my friends, we have got to see before
we get through this week that it is not just as simple as
that. And you will discover almost every day of your life
that this position of standing in and being in the good
of the finality of Christ’s work is not a simple
matter—it is challenged, up hill and down dale, all
the way along, that you should be moved, we should be
moved, from this position of the perfected work of the
Lord Jesus. We are come to something perfect, and we
should be the people embodying that perfect work of the
Lord Jesus! I do not mean that we are perfect, but His
work is perfect; and He Who is perfect is with us and in
us. The time will come when that perfection will be
manifested. I think that is a very wonderful fragment in
Thessalonians: “When He shall come to be
glorified in His saints, and to be marvelled at in all
them that believed”—marvelled at!—and
I suppose we shall marvel more than anyone else. Well,
that is Zion. It is Christ and Christ collective, Christ
corporate, the foundation of everything. His perfect work
as His perfect Person—that is Zion!

[2] ZION: THE SUPREME VICTORY OF THE
LORD

Number two: Now, of course, I am keeping very close to
the background, the symbolic and typical background, of
the Old Testament because while the things of the Old
Testament have gone, the meaning and the spiritual
principles are eternal so that the spiritual meaning and
principle of Zion is taken over and applied here. That is
why the very name, Zion, is taken out of the Old
Testament and brought here into the New: so that the next
thing about Zion is that it is the very symbol of His
absolute victory.

Do you remember the beginning of Zion? After they had
brought David back from his exile and made him king, the
Jebusites occupied this site and they sneered at David
from Zion and said, “Thou shall not come in hither”;
and they fortified it with the blind and the lame and
said, “These are enough to keep you out of here.
This is an impregnable stronghold, so much so that the
weakest can hold it, save it. If the weakest, the blind,
and the lame can do it, well, of course, it goes without
saying what the strongest can do.” The Jebusites
considered this Zion to be absolutely impregnable, the
last word in the unassailable and “uncapturable.”
They said: “You shall not come in here, indeed, it
is quite impossible for you to do so.”—“All
right,” says David. [They accept the challenge.]
“We take up the gauntlet. You will see.” We
know what happened. He did break through and break in and
take the stronghold and destroy the erstwhile
impregnability, and it became the city of David, the City
of the Great King. His great victory, his immense
victory, is centered in, registered in, established in,
Zion; and Zion is the very symbol and synonym of the
great prowess of God’s King, of God’s Anointed.

Now, bring that over: “Ye are come to Zion,”
the City of the Living God, ye are come to Zion. What
have we come to? We have come, we have come, to the
Supreme Victory of the Lord Jesus Christ over the
formerly impregnable—and what was that? We quote
from Matthew: “I will build My church; and the
gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
And what have you heard as the exposition of “the
gates of Hades?” I am not sure that in the early
days I did not make this mistake. “Gates,” in
the Bible in the Old Testament cities, were the place of
the counsels of the elders, where they came to their
decision by discussion and counsel and made their
decisions for the city and the land; and so we have said
the “gates” are the counsels of Hell. Do not
make that mistake. That is right, but that is not what it
means. What is the otherwise impregnable stronghold of
the prince of this world? It is death. It is death. The
spiritual stronghold into which the Lord Jesus broke was
that impregnable stronghold of “him, that is,
the devil, that had [the hold] the power of death”
(Hebrews 2:14). So the Risen Lord in the presentation of
Himself in the Book of the Revelation, right at the
beginning, says, “I am He That liveth, I became
dead; and, behold, I am alive unto the ages of the ages;
and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”

Spiritual death is a tremendous thing, a terrific thing,
so much so that the Apostle Paul almost exhausts the
vocabulary in this connection when he says that we should
know “the exceeding greatness of His power,
exceeding greatness of God’s power.” Think
of that! The psalmist would say, “Selah.”—Think
of that!

“The exceeding greatness of His power
(which is) to us-ward who believe, according to the
working [the energy, the Greek word here is energy] of
the strength of His might, which He wrought [or
energized] in Christ, when He raised Him from the
dead.” What language, what language. It is
simply beyond Paul’s expressions. He had a very good
vocabulary, but he is finding himself hard put to express
and explain what it meant to raise Jesus from the dead—to
overcome death!

Oh, it is so easy to say, “God raised Him from
the dead,” but do you see what it meant? The
illustration in the Word—and, of course, the
illustration always fades in the presence of the reality—but
the illustration in the Word is Egypt and Pharaoh and the
gods of the Egyptians. See how God is just, shall I say,
panning out His power in those ten judgments. The first
is a great power, the second is a great power and more,
and the third is still more, and on to ten. Increasing
power, increasing power, breaking down something,
steadily, steadily, breaking down a great force; and when
you come to the consummate thing, what is it? It is life
and death, the death of all the firstborn in Egypt; and
when that is registered, the people are free, out they
go, resurrected! It is an illustration. Types are always
poor things in the presence of the reality, the reality
is the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead by the glory
of the Father, by the exceeding greatness of His power—and
that is to us-ward. Dear friends, I do not think we have
begun to understand what it cost, and what power lies
behind, our being born again, our being brought from
death unto life.

Now we come back to Zion. That is Zion. “Ye are
come to Zion.” Ye are come to the immense
victory of the Lord Jesus in the realm that supremely
challenged God and heaven, the realm of death. Death. And
so you have here in this letter, especially in the first
chapters of Hebrews, so much about death. “He
tasted death for every man.” He tasted death
for every man: “He delivered all them who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). Underline death in
those early chapters because it is basic to all that
follows; and when you come to the end of the letter, you
have that great note struck again: “Now the God
of peace, Who brought again from the dead the Great
Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal
covenant, make you perfect.” We are brought
again from the dead. There is the potential, there is the
dynamic, of our being made perfect. That death, which put
a period to all spiritual perfection before, has now been
broken by the Great Shepherd of the sheep.

Did I say put a period? You remember in Hebrews, remember
Aaron and all his sons, the priests? It says they could
make nothing perfect because they died. Death put a
period to their work, and nothing was perfect. But He
has perfected forever. Why? Because He lives
forever, “I am alive unto the ages of the ages,”
therefore, that is the hope and dynamic of your being
made perfect.

Oh, thank God, “the exceeding greatness of His
power” which is going, eventually, “to
present us faultless before the presence of His glory in
exceeding joy; a glorious Church, not having spot, or
wrinkle, or any such thing,” —presented
faultless. Oh, what a word! What a sweep of the board
that is! Faultless! My, we down here are just obsessed
with one another’s faults and with our own
faultiness; and that is one’s trouble—looking
for the perfect assembly, the perfect church, and the
perfect Christian, and we are just all the time occupied
with what is not perfect. The fault and faults. To
present us faultless—“He is able to present
us faultless before the presence of His glory in
exceeding joy.” Why? Because He has conquered
death. Death is the stronghold, the stronghold, and He
has plundered the stronghold of Satan:

He plunged in His imperial strength to gulfs of
darkness down:
He brought His trophy up, at length, the foiled
usurper’s crown.

The crown of Satan is death. The crown
of Christ is Life: “I will give thee the crown
of Life.” Well, are we spending too much time
on details about Zion? This is what we have come to, or
are supposed to have come to. May we be given
strength and faith to apprehend what is being said. May
we enter into the marvelous joy of it.

[3] ZION: THE PLACE OF HIS DWELLING

Number three: Zion, again, was and is in its spiritual
meaning, in its reality, the center of His dwelling. His
dwelling. The Lord dwelt in Zion. The Lord was found in
Zion. You notice the words from Exodus 15? “Thou
wilt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of
Thine inheritance, the place, O Lord, Which Thou hast
made for Thee to dwell in....” We know
historically that it was there that God had His
Sanctuary; and I ought to say here that without dealing
with details, as in Hebrews 12, verse 18 and onward,
Jerusalem and Zion look like synonymous terms. They look
as though they are interchangeable. They are not exactly
the same thing, but dare I stop to deal with the
difference that there is? It may come out without any
special consideration, but here is “the city
which Thou, O Lord, hast made—the heavenly
Jerusalem.”

And so we come then to this place of His dwelling, the
place where the Lord is. If you were asked where you
would find the Lord, I wonder what you would answer. You
might mention many things, such as, “If you want to
find the Lord, you come to our meetings. You come to our
company, our place of worship, and you will find the Lord
there”; and so you localize the Lord. I know in the
Old Testament they had to go to the places where He
caused His Name to be. However, in the geographical and
literal sense, that is no longer the case.

To understand this, let us see that here is a great
danger into which Christendom has fallen; and we are all
in danger of localizing the presence of God. I mean
literally saying: “This is where you have to come,
or that is where you have to go, if you want to find the
Lord.” Do not be deceived. That is not true. We have
passed from that system. That is under the “not.”
That is under the not. It sweeps all that conception
away. There are no sacred “Ephesus” or “Philippi”
or “Thessalonica”: if there were, they would be
today where they were two thousand years ago. They are
not. They have gone. The Lord was met there, but you will
not meet Him there any longer, not in that way. No, not
even in Jerusalem, and not in Rome. But where is the
Lord? The Lord Jesus has given us, is it a formula, a
prescription? “For where two or three are
gathered together in My name, there I am.”
There I AM, that is the only localization (I hesitate to
use the word “locality”) that is the only
localization of the Lord!

Now, at any place where you may have met the Lord,
amongst any company of the Lord’s people where
people may have met Him, as soon as they cease to be
spiritually Zion, to be what Zion really is spiritually,
the Lord leaves that just as He left the tabernacle in
Shiloh. It is not sacred, the tabernacle is not sacred or
it would be preserved until today. No, things on this
earth are not sacred to God. The place where the Lord is
and is to be found is in Zion; ah, but what Zion means,
what Zion is, what we have been saying Zion is—that
is what we have come to!

Now you can go and put up a building and get a
congregation and put over the door—“Zion.”
No! no! no! this is this mentality, you see this
mentality? No, Zion is a spiritual thing, a spiritual
people, and the great thing about them is... you meet the
Lord there when you meet them. With them, you just meet
the Lord. You are not meeting a technique, a form, a
ritual, a doctrine, a teaching, an interpretation and all
that. You are just meeting the Lord. “Ye are
come to Zion.”—Oh, let that be a test as
well as a statement. We will give up everything, and
rightly so, we could let anything go—buildings,
places, and all our constitution—we let it all go if
people are not finding the Lord when they come where we
are. Paul brings that down to the individual: “Ye
are a sanctuary of the Living God.” That is an
individual application, “the temple of God.”
The place of His dwelling is the place where Christ is in
the finality of His work, the fullness of what He has
done, where things are according to Christ. That is Zion!

[4] ZION: THE SEAT OF DIVINE GOVERNMENT

Number four: Zion is the seat of Divine government, so
go back again to “Zion, the city of the great
King.” Out of Zion shall the government go
forth. Out of Zion shall He rule the nation. Zion, the
seat of His sovereignty and His government, where His
throne is. I hinted a few minutes ago at the difference
between Jerusalem and Zion. Zion, as I understand, is
what Jerusalem ought to be; and Jerusalem is not always
Zion, but Zion is what Jerusalem ought to be—the
governmental center.

All the people of God are not the seat and center and
expression of this government; and in the Book of
Revelation, you will have something more than “the
holy city, new Jerusalem.” You will have “nations
walking in the light thereof.” You will have an
extra circle. Yes, they are in the Kingdom. No, I am not
now discriminating between the Church and the Kingdom.
That is not my point, but I am saying that there are
overcomers. “To him that overcometh will I grant
to sit with me in My Throne.” That is Zion, but
Jerusalem does not always conform to that, so far as the
Lord’s people are concerned.

I think I had better leave it there, but, you see, this
is a great difficulty with many. You present the
ultimate, full thought of God for the Church, what God’s
Mind is about the Church, the Heavenly Jerusalem, yes,
you present it; but some say, “Look at all these
Christians, one foot in the world and the other foot in
Christianity.” But remember, there is such a thing
as God having a governing people. It is one thing to be
the citizen of a country, or even of a city, but it is
another thing to be a member of the royal household. Do
you see what I mean? Zion is the very epitome, the very
essence, of God’s thought for His Church, to which
the Church (as a whole) does not all approximate, but it,
Zion, is this governmental thing.

Now at the beginning it was like that. The literal
Jerusalem in JudŠa of old was the center of the
government of the land. You come into your New Testament,
and you find that things move from Jerusalem. They move.
You say, “Antioch becomes the new center, takes the
place of Jerusalem”? Is that right? That is the way
expositors put it, they make a geographical movement of
it. Well, all right, you can have it if you like, but it
is not true. Let us go to Antioch then and have a look
and see what this is.

What are they doing in Antioch? There were certain
brethren in Antioch and “they fasted and prayed,
and the Holy Spirit said....” They are off the
earth, they are out of the world, they have left things
here, they are linked with heaven. And by the Holy Spirit
sent down from heaven, the Heavenly Government is in
operation. The Heavenly Throne is governing there.

No, it is not a board meeting. I do not know if any of
you know the cartoons of E. J. Pace, but years ago in the
Sunday School Times, he had a very good one. I think it
was a humorous one, but very good. He called it, “The
First Board Meeting of the New Testament,” and here
it is: all the believers are gathered in a congregation
in Jerusalem, and there are two big Hands with a big
board in them. And this big board, this huge piece of
timber, smashed down upon that building and “they
were all scattered,” scattered throughout all
JudŠa, throughout all Samaria, and to the uttermost
parts of the earth; and he calls that “The First
Board Meeting.”

No, the governmental center is not in Jerusalem literally
and, no, not in Antioch literally. Zion is where heaven
is governing and not men, where the heavenly councils are
operating: “and the Holy Spirit said.”
The Holy Spirit. That is what we have come to, or ought
to have come to. I hope I have not offended any of you
board members, you committee men, you church directors.
No, no, we are coming to reality. Zion is testing,
challenging our whole system. And here, at this point,
Zion means:—it is that where Heaven rules, the
Ascended Christ governs through the Holy Spirit, makes
the decisions, gives the decisions, directs the courses.
“Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work
whereunto...” the board meeting has appointed
them?—No, “I have called them.”
This is Heaven acting, and that is fruitful.

[5] ZION: THE PLACE OF SECURED AND
ESTABLISHED FELLOWSHIP

Number five: Zion is the place of secured and
established fellowship. Now this is rather interesting,
instructive. Go back to your Old Testament. When the
hearts of the men of Israel turned from Saul to David to
bring him back and make him king, what happened? The
first movement was to Hebron, and there they stayed for
seven years at Hebron. What is Hebron? Do you know the
meaning of Hebron?—Fellowship, fellowship, that is
Hebron. Now you can put that over a fellowship if you
like, and call it Hebron, but let it be true of that
fellowship. However, they brought David back and, first
of all, made him king in Hebron. It was a partial thing.
It was a movement unto fulness, but seven years in
Hebron, seven years (spiritually interpreted) of securing
fellowship. And after the seven years, up to Jerusalem to
Zion; and the values of Hebron are now centered in Zion,
i.e., Zion is that in which the true fellowship
of the Spirit is established!

You have got to read the rest of this section of Hebrews.
See the marvelous fellowship that is there. What have we
come to? Even “to the spirits of just men made
perfect.” We are come to a marvelous fellowship
in heaven. “To hosts of angels,” in
fellowship with the angels; fellowship with “the
spirits of just men made perfect”; in
fellowship with “Jesus the Mediator of the new
covenant.” It is fellowship that is in Zion,
heavenly fellowship, heavenly fellowship. And you know
quite well if you just get a little taste of heavenly
fellowship, it is heaven.

Some of you have come from far places where you have
little or no real spiritual fellowship; and whatever
other values there may be about convocations, I have
always found that one of the greatest values, even more
than the ministry, has been these lonely pilgrims coming
from far and near in the songs of ascents up to Zion, and
finding that heart-ravishing fellowship which has sent
them back to their lonely places feeling and knowing:
“Well, I am not alone after all, I thought I was
alone. I was Elijah looking for a juniper tree to say, it
is enough. Oh, Lord, take away my life. I am the only one
left. But I discovered that there are seven thousand in
Israel!” Fellowship is a marvelous thing. That is
Zion in truth. “Ye are come.” Oh,
that we might always live in the good of that, and in our
loneliness and isolations and exiles know that our
fellowship is in heaven. It took seven years to get
that fellowship, and then established in Zion.
In Zion. Well, what is it again? It is the
fellowship of Christ being in His right place and His
full place. David is now in his right place, and in his
full place, for which God chose and anointed him. He is
there: Our Greater David in His place, right place and
full place—and wherever that is true, that is Zion.
And it is not Zion unless it is like that.

[6] ZION: THE GROUND OF OUR SPIRITUAL
FESTIVITY

Number six: Zion is the ground of our festivities. I
have almost said this in what I have just said. What does
it say? “Zion, the city of our solemnities.”
That is the phrase in Scripture, “the city, the
place, of our solemnities.” What did that mean? It
was the great feasts and festivals of the people which
they had in Zion. God had ordained this people should be
a festive people. Now this portion in Hebrews says that
is what we have come to. We have come to numerous angels
in festal array. The city of our festivities. Need I say
any more? I believe this, I know this, that if you have
anything that approximates to Zion spiritually, anything
that is really and truly spiritual Zion, however small it
may be, you will have a feast of good things. Where these
things are true, where these five things that I have
mentioned are true:
[1] A people in the good of the Complete and Perfect Work
of Christ
[2] The Supreme Victory of the Lord
[3] The Place of His Dwelling
[4] The Seat of Divine Government
[5] The Place of Secured and Established Fellowship

where these things are true, you will never be hungry,
spiritually hungry. The Lord will see to it that there is
plenty there. You will not be miserable, but full of joy!
We need something more than religious picnics: we need
Zion’s spiritual festivities.

“Hosts of angels in festal array.” I
do not know that I understand that altogether, but I
think I can glimpse it. My, when the angels see Zion, how
happy they are! How glad they are! There is certainly joy
amongst the angels when you have things like this. When
they look at a spiritual Zion, they put on their festal
garments and say, “This is it. This is it.” The
angels rejoice. Perhaps that is an imperfect
interpretation: I do not know, but I am sure it is a part
of it because we register this when we have anything that
approximates to Zion in this way. Zion’s fellowship
and the King really in His Place of Governing—we
register heaven’s feeling about it and say, “My,
this is good”; and we no longer condemn poor old
Simon Peter. We fall into the same wonderful and glorious
trap. We say, “It is good to be here.”
Let us never go away from this place again. “Let
us make three tabernacles.” We sang, just
before this ministry this morning, about the warring
world below. We have got to go back to it, but may we go
back with something of the joy of Zion, the city of our
solemnities, spiritual festivity. I must leave that then
and come to the last thing about Zion for this morning;
and this is only the first fragment in the whole section.
There is another one which will probably take the whole
of our time tomorrow, number eight, but that is not
coming now.

[7] ZION: THE PLACE OF OUR SPIRITUAL
FRANCHISE— I AM REGISTERED IN HEAVEN, I AM A CITIZEN
OF HEAVEN

Number seven: Zion, the place of our spiritual
franchise. Is that a difficult word, idea? Now if you do
not know what I mean, I remind you of Psalm 87: “The
Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings
of Jacob.” Then the psalmist picks out those
places in the world that men boast of. “I was
born in Philistia. Think of that.”—“I was
born in Tyre. Think of that! I am a Tyrite. I am a
citizen of Tyre.”—“I was born in Ethiopia.
Think of that!” The psalmist (you can almost
hear and see his joy) the psalmist says: “But
this man was born in Zion, it shall be said. Of Zion, it
shall be said, this man was born there.”
Something absolutely superior. This man is a citizen of
Zion, he is born there, his name is registered there, and
the psalmist concludes that whole survey, comparison, and
contrast with: “All my springs are in thee”—All
my wellsprings are in thee. The place of my franchise:
“I am registered in heaven, I am a citizen of
heaven.”

“Our citizenship, says the apostle, is
in heaven; from whence we look for a Saviour.”
“Our life is hid with Christ in God.”
We have been “born from above” [always
correct the translation]; not “born again,” but
“born from above,” that is something
more than born again. Not only have we been “born
from above” and our names “written in
the Lamb’s Book of Life”; not only that,
that is glorious, but you have the franchise. Paul
boasted of his freemanship: “I am a freeman born,”
and they all had to yield to that, even the Roman Empire
had to bow to that, a freeman born. The poor centurion
captain had a bad time when he heard that. My word, his
life was at stake for having put chains on a free man. Our
citizenship is in heaven, our franchise is in
heaven, we are “heirs of God and joint-heirs
with Christ.” This one was born there at Zion,
in Zion.

I must leave that with you, I do trust it is not just a
lot of either interesting or even fascinating Bible
teaching, but this is a challenge: “Ye are come
to Zion.”
Lord, help us to see what we have come to, what we really
are in the Divine Thought. The Lord make this true of us,
wherever we may be, and of the little companies with
which we may be related and connected, that it is in this
true spiritual sense, Zion indeed!

Lord, make this more than teaching and doctrine and truth
and Bible exposition. Do put the challenge into it, into
every one of our hearts, is this true of me? Am I a
citizen of Zion? Are these things real in my life? Help
us to attend to it. Answer our prayer, for the Sake of
Thine Own Glory and Satisfaction in Thy Son, Amen.